Since their church's founding in the early 1820s, Mormons were cast out of every city they ever inhabited. Disliked for their different beliefs and rejected for their polygamist practices, the Latter-day Saints needed to relocate to a place utterly isolated from society. Chosen by church leaders specifically for its barrenness and emptiness, Utah was a perfect destination for these persecuted people.

In July 1847, Brigham Young led a group of 143 men, three women, and two children into the Salt Lake Valley after an incredibly strenuous journey from Illinois. This small group of people immediately began to civilize the Salt Lake Valley in European style for the first time. Shortly after their arrival, other, larger Mormon "handcart" pioneer groups arrived to their new holy land.

Though Utah and Salt Lake City are most famous for the post-1848 history, the region has experienced billions of years of natural history before that, as well as thousands of years of human history. In fact, Utah is home to some of the oldest evidence of humans in North America -found in Danger Cave (north of Wendover, Utah).

Some of this natural and human history is told and illustrated at the Utah Museum of Natural History, the Fort Douglas Museum, and the Utah State Historical Society. The history of the Mormons (or Latter-day Saints) is amply told at the many buildings, visitors centers, and museums in and around Temple Square. This very unique and fast-growing religion has its very global headquarters in none other than Salt Lake City.